HiLumi LHC: new magnets reach full power – Home

CERN has reached a significant milestone for the High-Luminosity LHC. At the IT String test facility, the new generation of quadrupole magnets successfully hit their nominal operating current of 16,230 amperes. These inner triplet magnets are essential for the future of the collider, designed to focus particle beams more tightly than current hardware allows. This improvement is expected to increase the collision rate and overall luminosity when the machine begins operation in 2030.

Technically, these magnets offer several improvements over the existing niobium-titanium versions. The aperture has increased from 70 to 150 millimetres, and the use of niobium-tin superconducting coils allows them to hit magnetic fields of 11.3 teslas. This represents a 35 percent increase in magnetic field strength. One of the most notable outcomes of these tests was the lack of quenches during the ramp-up. Usually, superconducting magnets require a training process to reach full power, but these magnets demonstrated stability from the start.

Retention of this performance is referred to as memory, which is critical for minimizing commissioning time and operational delays. The team also successfully tested the protection systems, which are tasked with safely extracting and dissipating up to 38 megajoules of energy into a helium bath during potential faults. These systems operated exactly as intended, confirming the safety protocols for the High-Luminosity LHC.

With all 17 electrical circuits now powered to their targets, the hardware commissioning phase is complete. The team has gathered a substantial amount of data on subsystems like cryogenics, power converters, and alignment. This information is vital for fine-tuning the machine before the next round of testing. A second operational campaign begins in September to further test the integrated system under conditions that mirror the upcoming high-luminosity runs.